Monday, December 22, 2014

Instrument Of Iran’s Power In Iraq And Syria Kataib Hezbollah

As the insurgency grew at the beginning of 2014, many of
Iraq’s militias began mobilizing to face the threat. One of those was Kataib
Hezbollah (KH), the Hezbollah Brigades. In 2007 the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards Corps Quds Force (IRGC – QF) formed the group as a small elite unit to
attack U.S. forces in Iraq. Its leader was Abu Mahdi Muhandis, a former member
of Dawa and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, who now acts as a
representative of Quds Force commander General Qasim Suleimani in Iraq. In 2012
KH was deployed to Syria by Tehran to support the government of Bashar
al-Assad, and in 2014 it refocused upon Iraq to fight insurgents there. From the
day it was formed until today Kataib Hezbollah has acted as a means for Iran to
project its influence into Syria and Iraq.

(Wikipedia)

Kataib Hezbollah has its origins with the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force (IRGC – QF). In 2007
IRGC-QF created
Kataib Hezbollah as a small elite force of around 400 fighters to carry out
operations against the United States and Coalition Forces in Iraq. It received arms
and equipment from Tehran as well as training
by Lebanese Hezbollah. Starting in March 2007 it began attacking American
forces. In July 2009 the U.S. Treasury Department put the organization on its
terrorist list and sanctioned it. From 2010-11 it stepped up its attacks as the
Americans were preparing to withdraw. In July 2010 for example, commander of
U.S. forces in Iraq General Ray Odierno claimed
that KH elements were in Iran for training to conduct new operations against
the U.S, and Iranian
advisers were also said to be in Iraq as well to assist it. The next year
on June
6, 2011 KH claimed responsibility for an attack upon a base in Baghdad that
killed five U.S. soldiers, and also carried out a rocket attack upon the Green
Zone three days later. At the end of the month it killed three more Americans
in a rocket
barrage on their base in Wasit province near the Iranian border. KH was
created to carry out Iranian policy in Iraq. Tehran was threatened by the U.S.
occupation of Iraq. There were hostile forces right on its border and the
Americans were trying to create a pro-Western government in Baghdad. Iran was
intent on undermining these efforts and funded various militias to drive the
U.S. out. When American announced that it would withdraw by the end of 2011
Tehran had its proxies like KH pick up its operation so that Iran could claim
credit for the departure of the U.S.

Kataib Hezbollah next expanded its operations to Syria when
Iran’s ally President Bashar al-Assad was threatened. In 2012
Quds Force commander General Qasim Suleimani called on Kataib Hezbollah and
other Iraqi militias aligned with Tehran to send fighters to Syria to help the
Assad government. KH helped form the Abu Fadhl al-Abbas Brigade along with
Syrian and Lebanese members under the supervision of the IRGC-QF.
In early 2013 it formed another militia Kataib
Sayid al-Shuhada along with the Badr Organization to fight in Syria. By April
2013 it made its first public announcements of its involvement in Syria
when it posted pictures of some its men that died there. To support and
maintain this effort KH began recruiting
in Iraq, with some of its new fighters being sent to Iran or Lebanon
for training. KH justified its involvement in Syria by saying that it was
defending the Sayid Zainab shrine in the Damascus suburbs from Sunni Islamists
and the Free Syrian Army. That way it could say that it was performing a
religious duty and distract from its support of the Assad government and
working for Tehran. The shrine was also located in a strategic neighborhood
that blocked rebels from surrounding the Syrian capital and allowed regime
forces access to the Damascus International Airport. When the protests against
the Assad government began, Tehran
offered support to break them up. It didn’t believe that the Syrian army was
loyal or up to the task however so it brought in its Iraqi allies such as Kataib
Hezbollah. Now these have become the main forces defending the government
against the rebels. In turn that made Assad dependent upon Iran and its Iraqi
proxies. This strategy would be replayed in Iraq in 2014.

When the Iraqi insurgency was revived this year KH began
bringing back its men from Syria to fight at home. According to Reuters,
in April Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had a meeting where he told fellow
politicians that militias were being deployed to the Baghdad belts because he
was disappointed with the performance of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). These
irregular forces were put under Maliki’s office of commander and chief. KH was
already withdrawing
its men from Syria to fight in Iraq by then, and began a new recruiting drive
in April as well. These were put into Popular Defense Companies. The next month
KH posted video of it helping the ISF. In turn, the army was providing
uniforms, weapons and support to the group. Its role was expanded after the
fall of Mosul in June. In August
it helped break the siege of Amerli in Salahaddin, and was said to have Quds
Force advisers with it. Like in Syria, its operations were coordinated with
General Suleimani. In December
for instance, an Iraqi parliamentarian told the Observer, Suleimani “has the
Shia militias, Asai’b ahl al-Haq, Katai’b Hezbollah and the Badr Brigades
following his instructions to the letter.” Like in Syria, the Iranian
government was not sure of the capabilities of the ISF when open fighting began
in Anbar in January. It therefore called on its militia allies once more to
protect the government. Today those groups are half or more of the government’s
forces, and they have been informally integrated within units of the ISF. This
has made Baghdad just like Damascus largely dependent upon Iranian and militia
support to fight the insurgents.

KH’s leader Abu Mahdi Muhandis, also known as “The
Engineer,” is a facilitator for Iran’s policies in Iraq. Muhandis, real name
Jamal Jaafar Mohammed Ibrahimi, joined the Dawa Party in Iraq in the early
1970s. He left for Kuwait later in that decade where he found a job as an
engineer in Kuwait City. In 1983 he helped with the bombings of the U.S. and
French embassies there and then made an attempt to assassinate the emir of
Kuwait in 1985. These were both planned by the Quds Force to deter Kuwait,
France and the Americans from supporting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. Muhandis
ended up moving to Iran afterward where he joined the Islamic Supreme Council
of Iraq (ISCI). He went on to fight on the Iranian side in the Iran-Iraq War
and eventually became the deputy commander of ISCI’s militia the Badr Brigade. Badr
was then an official
arm of the IRGC making Muhandis an Iranian officer. In 2002, Muhandis quit
ISCI when it decided to work with the Americans in the build up to the 2003
invasion of Iraq. In 2005,
Muhandis won a seat in the Iraqi parliament as part of the Iraqi United
Alliance, but when the U.S. found out who he was it put out an arrest warrant
for him and he fled back to Iran. That didn’t stop him from unsuccessfully
running again in 2010 with the Iraqi National Alliance. Between then he
funneled weapons to Iranian backed militias, while providing training for their
fighters. When the Americans finally withdrew at the end of 2011, Muhandis
returned to Iraq where he worked as General Suleimani’s unofficial
representative to Baghdad. When in Iraq he lived
in a house in the Green Zone under the protection of Premier Maliki. The premier
not only gave him political cover saying that the charges against him for the
bombings and assassination attempt in Kuwait in the 1980s were never proven, but
even included him in an official delegation to Kurdistan in February 2013. Since
2014 he has facilitated the flow of Iranian funds, logistics and planning to
its militia allies in Iraq. Muhandis’ long alliance with the Iranians explains
why he was put in charge of Kataib Hezbollah when it was formed in 2007. He’d
been working on conjunction with the IRGC since the 1980s and had a commission
in the organization. His long time in the Iraqi opposition also gave him
standing and ties with many Shiite politicians that came to power after 2003
making him an ideal middle man between them and Tehran. He has maintained this
role into the present time.

Kataib Hezbollah has worked as one of Iran’s main proxies in
Iraq and Syria since its creation in 2007. It carried out attacks for Tehran
against the Americans, and then moved to defend Iran’s ally President Assad in
Syria. Today it is one of the main forces defending Baghdad and its leader
Muhandis is helping to supply other pro-Iranian militias as well. All along it
has served Iran’s interests in the region opposing its enemies and helping its
friends. Tehran has regularly deployed these types of allies to carry out its
policies in the Middle East and beyond.

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Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com